The search of the chosen idea

We're clogging a general thread with talking about paratroopers again here. See this one for my argument as I made it earlier:


Add transport planes/Paratroopers

To summarize: no, paratroopers never took significant ground, but were a support unit for other troops.

Reply there if you feel like it.

we owe it to nem to keep this thread alive. He will put a lot of work into it for us. He has before.

hes some kinda crazy statistician guy, and this is one of the best chances we have to see our ideas implemented.

the developers will probably throw away most of these ideas though...

Sad but true draza. sad but true.

I'd like to put up for the vote:

Variable day change, based on the time the game was created.

Oh and another one:

Double resource production on the 25p map (bigger empires are basically unplayable now).

any idea how this poll went?

nem's been missing for a few days so idk. i hope hes ok.

lol. been there. im sure he'll pick it up when he returns.

There's a point system, you rack up points up and when you hit a limit, you get banned.

Apparently, the "professionals" make plenty of mistakes, too. My point, however, was that most of these forum actions are taken by volunteers, on their own time, and often they are rushing to answer multiple posts after a long weekend during which no administrators answered any threads at all on the English language forum. It's got to be a significant time burden for the handful of active volunteer forum administrators who regularly respond, so this was not a "rip" on the volunteers' efforts, but rather a simple acknowledgment that the Forum largely runs on the irregular hours of volunteers who apparently work when they can.

Poo Poo! I missed the vote!

Sooo.....did the poll even occur?

and what was the most popular option?

no poll yet. the top seem to be 1. transport planes/airborne troops 2. arcade/realistic/simulator modes 3. blitz map returned to its old high resource start 4. Pt boats 5. trading within coalition

Disclaimer: Alot of the suggestions i will make below will quite possibly make the game more complex but that's why most people play the game right? For complex strategic take over the world games like this.

1. Paratroopers?
I haven't read into the forum but i can only guess that paratroopers weren't added/taken away because of balance issues. Nerf it hard. You should have to research 2 units, Paratroopers, and transport planes(#12). Transport planes can be leveled up, Paratroopers will stay the same lvl. 1, their stats should be very weak. They shouldn't be able to capture provinces, but they can capture or destory, railroads, bridges, highways. They could even have an option to blockade roads, highways, railroads, bridges. The landing should be innaccurate, maybe a circle of some sort to indicate where the troops will land based on weather or time of day. Anti-air and infantry should have some defense or something like that where only a certain number of troops will land(lose condition points for the regiment) because the infantry/anti-air/tanks are shooting the paratroopers down maybe also fighters. The anti-air could shoot the paratrooper plane squadrons in the air and reduce both paratroopers and plane condition points at the same rate, and then when the paratroopers are landing the infantry and anti-air can reduce the infantries condition points. Also the anti-air should have a range where anything passing above gets shot at at least once. The Paratroopers should have like an hour of landing time all the while able to be shot at. Also reduce the range of the paratrooper planes flight radius I guess that's all i have to say on the topic.(Edit check #7)

2. Resource Production
People should be able to go to a province like a plains province. If it isn't producing anything or is already they can switch it to a resource relative to the terrain. (It should be a very small production at first but then it should start to exponentially grow bigger over time i.e. farms, mines, oil drills, Goods as in stores in genaral or as buisnesses, and deeper mines-rare metals)
In other words say i wanted to produce food in North Sudan's Dongola province. i would go to the province and build a farm. it being a plains province i could(maybe not it may be to dry). it then starts producing like 50 food per day on day 1. Day 20 it starts producing 900 per day.
Mountians-Rare Metals, Metal
Varied terrain should be split into hills and forests
Hills-Food, Oil, metal maybe, rare metals maybe too
Forests-Not much of anything, maybe a new resource like wood needed for building your economy, or can be classified as goods.
Plains-Food,Oil,Goods
Cities-Goods, Oil, Metal
This may seem Overpowered because people can spam oil or a resource they want. But you should maybe manually limit which provinces can be switched to produce a certain resource. That will take a lot of effort to make this idea happen by going through all the provinces in all the maps, so maybe another idea i haven't thought of for limiting that.

3. More buildings!
Expanding on the idea of #2 above, There should be higher level buildings added to the research tab. like Industrial complexes lvl. 8 or something like that. But this is where you also have to research farms and mines in order to switch provinces or even upgrade the resource production. You could keep the 2 research queues so people would then have to spend time researching that too, that could limit the whole resource switching idea.


4. Trade routes or something of the sort
Provinces should have a sort of storage in them. All the resources they produce could be stored in that province and then taken to another province if it's needed for building something in that province. Say i am North Sudan I am producing goods in Khartoum, (Money doesn't need to be transported, manpower yes though) And i want to produce some infantry in Sennar The goods have to be transported there via a convoy(Or Transport plane #12). This convoy can be intercepted, bombed, destoryed, taken, anything really. It should be able to travel faster though, like maybe 40 km/h because of the time, but the infantry can start producing. It will be done however when it has all the necessary resources and is done training. There should be an option where you can switch between view of resource convoys, all other units, and then overlap the two.This might add some fun for those who just want to destroy convoys all day. Also units shouldn't have to travel through a center point of every province, there should be additional roads. Also all units should need supply convoys(ammo, food, manpower). That should be the daily upkeep. You can still move resources around whichever way you want like amassing resources in this one province to then use to build other units around it or just to protect it. But if that unit doesn't receive food, then it starts losing a 2 condition points a day or some small number. If it doesn't receive metal(Ammo) then it can't attack. If it doesn't recieve oil it can't move. Something like that. This may make the game really hard as you have to move a whole bunch of convoys everywhere, but you should be able to click a province, select resources, and send to units by just clicking on them. You can still alter the path like in google maps, they have points you can move around to other roads. You can also select excess resources to a unit like 2x it's normal upkeep and it won't need resources the next day because it stocked up. This will make flanking a possibility. But if you are going to do this then you may have to add a small food production to all provinces maybe 30 per day, depending on the province. Also this may stop the spamming oil on all provinces as people will have to have an even amount of resources in an area to build everything.

5. Travel
Large rivers should be instituted into the game. Like the Rhine or Nile, maybe even smaller rivers. But you should need bridges to cross these, these bridges could however be destroyed if needed by whoever owns that or saboteurs. but units need to cross these bridges to get across they will be seperated on the way, 1 regiment or brigade at a time, but they will meet up at the end of the bridge. Bridges should be able to be built though. Ferries are another possibility but they should be slower like carry a infantry regiment every 5 hours or so. Certain mountians should be impassable, like in the Himilayas. Or even terrain could chip away at units -5 condition points per hour spent in province? Also Infrastructure could be eliminated into something else, Highways and railroads. Highways could be fast, but not that fast, maybe 120% in your own territory, They should cost a little less than infrastructure but because it should only be applied to a certain road you want it on like only 2 of the 6 roads in a province, costs 1/3 of a regular infrastructure. You could still upgrade the highways to increase unit speed(Resarch tab #3). But then there should be railroads, to transport troops really fast maybe 200%(or a set speed of 60km/h for all units) in your own territory. but the railroads need a daily upkeep of oil(it's coal but just use oil). These should also be allowed to be applied only to certain roads of choice in a province. Also units on railroads shouldn't be able to attack immediately. Say i had some heavy tanks travelling along a railroad, there are some enemy light tanks ahead. My heavy tanks have to disembark from the train to then attack the light tanks. Maybe a unloading time of an hour, something like that. Loading time also 1 hour.

Above post continued...
6. Defense
Units should have another option where they can hole up anywhere and increase their defensive stats by a little bit. Like +25% bonus to defense. Except navy and planes(of course) but conovys should have the option(#4 and regular ship convoys and airplane convoys). It should take like a day to hole down and gain the defensive stat.

7. Patrol
Yes still expanding on the paratroopers this might help nerf them. Ground units should be able to patrol , set a patrol route and they constantly patrol along it, if there is any enemy unit then attack. This might be another idea for fire control, but instead you can use it with tanks and infantry, they simply march to the enemy. Say i had some paratroopers landing in a province, i had some SP Anti-air patrolling several provinces nearby, (they should have a range of course that may be implemented as fire control, but even still they march) they will see the paratroopers landing(1 hour of landing time maybe more) and the anti-air can start shooting at them.

8. Healing
This may abolish the idea of spending gold to heal units. But units should be able to regain condition points. Say i had some infantry, it's at 50% right now. I can send it to a province that has a industrial complex and a barracks. I can then click heal, it should take longer to heal that 50% than it would to train 50%( like double the time to heal the unit releative to it's training time) It will need the resources provided by convoys and will only be done when all the resources are present and training is done. Also units that are damaged should be able to combine. Say i had 2 infantry one was 40% health, the other was 50%, they can combine to a 90%, maybe make it 85%, just minus 5%. Of course this has to be optional.

9. Training units
When training units they should be able to be taken out of training in times of need. Say i was producing a heavy tank, it's only 30% done(make it so you can't take it out unless it is more than 20% done training) But i need it to defend against this one light tank in the area that's already almost dead. I can take it out of training and defend against the light tank. This might tie in with #7 on healing, where you can put it back in the province and heal/finish training. The tank however can only be taken out if the amount of training done has it's resources. In other words my heavy tank is 30% yet 30% of the resources needed to finish it haven't arrived. I can take it out but only at 20% because i only have 20% of the resources there. That 20% should be 20% of the lowest amount of resources i have from the total. Say i had all the food but no metal or oil, it will still be 0%. But my metal and oil got there now i have 20% of the metal and oil needed. Now i can take out the tank at 20%.

10. Core provinces
In some games non-core provinces are a drag. All they do is give you more population that kills your food production. After a certain alloted time provinces you have kept should switch to core provinces maybe after 20 days, but the province needs to have reached above 80% morale. Another idea for Core provinces is for the resource production rate of non-core provinces to gradually go up over time, from 25% to 40% after 10 days or something like that.

11. Scouts
Only certain units like commandoes or armored cars, or even a whole other unit called scouts, can scout out provinces without attacking. Scouts should be cheap and easy to produce, they should be fast (maybe 60 km/h or even depends on level in research tree), they should be able to run through enemy provinces without attacking those units basically bypassing, they can't take over provinces, and have very low to no defenseive, offensive capabilities. They should only be revealed when passing through enemy armies but can be spotted by any air patrolling above, and maybe even patrolling armies #7. They can't be taken out by armies just waiting. They have to be attacked directly from ground units or air units. They can however be destroyed by counter espionage spies and enemy scouts This may seem like a spies job, but early game this could help alot of people. It may be Overpowered especially early game if the enemy doesn't have spies, scouts, or even planes. they should have a range of scouting, maybe 70 km before they have to resupply. and during that time they have a certain percentage(70%) of being revealed just from that enemy province, i.e. local police. They also have a certain percentage of being caught when resupplying(70%) after being revealed. This percentage should go down as well as the percentage of being revealed as you lvl. them up through the research tree.

12. Transport Planes
Transport planes should have to be researched and can be leveled up to increase range, attack and defensive stats, speed, carrying capacity for different resources, Paratrooper carry limit. There should be maybe 5 levels. lvl. 4 can transport paratroopers(only 1, lvl. 5 can carry 2). But they could be a quick way to transport resources around the map. There should be a limit, but they should be able to increase with each lvl. up.
Food-1500
Manpower-500
Metal-700
Oil-900
Rare Metals-400
To transport resources they need to touch down in airports. However to transport food they can drop onto province/unit. Paratroopers can also be dropped. Transport planes could also drop food on a low morale province to raise the moral slightly. They can't drop resources on naval ships without an aircraft carrier and only then 50%.

13. Naval Refueling
Navy shouldn't be allowed to stay at sea forever. They need ports to resupply or resource convoys to resupply. They should have a set range and when they are running low(Almost near range where they can't get back to nearest freindly port) will have a warning sign or something. They can't stay still because of tide, and ocean currents so they are constantly moving. There could be transport planes-aircraft carriers, or resource convoy ships to the naval unit. When they run out of oil, they can drift with the ocean currents. Slowly but steadily they will move off course. There should be an option to set a port that the ships can refuel at when needed. Or a convoy destined to go there when needed.

14. Subs
Subs lvl. 2 and higher should have the option to submerge completely underwater near the ocean floor. They should only be allowed to do this for 2-3 hours. depends on the lvl. of the sub. Higher lvl. equals more submerging time. The sub should have to submerge for an hour, and emerge for another hour. They cannot be seen by planes or destroyers. But if they stay down there for too long it will be immediately destroyed. These subs can travel under destroyers and any other ship. Except if the Destroyer is lvl. 4 or higher. It will see the sub (Destroyers can attack the sub when submerged). The sub can't attack units while submerged but can see units above it. Also Nuclear Carriers and Battleships should be able to detect subs. The sub has no defensive stats when being attacked submerged except against other submerged subs.

15. Naval Rockets
There should be a seperate research tree in the Secret tab unlocked after researching rockets lvl. 1 for Naval Rockets. These rockets should be allowed to be launched from any lvl 3 or higher naval ship(Including subs when emerged, but not destroyers) They should be limited to only 1-2 rockets per ship depending on the lvl. of the ship. The damage should mainly be focused on Naval and Buildings. These can also be implemented as a sort of long range torpedo.

Edit:
Is this too late? Will post in another forum...
Also please criticize, maybe balance issues, further ideas on each of the topics.
Which ideas to consider, which to brainstorm more.
I am kinda rewriting all the game mechanics here and these changes may have to be made gradually.
Also comment on which ideas could be added for all games, as a optional feature when creating the map, or just get rid of the idea.

Albert Einstein wrote:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress."

Yeah i know Einstein scientist, but he did help make just about everything in the secret research tree, nuclear stuff...

not too late. thank you for all your thoughtful input

Thanks, any ideas? criticism?

no offense, but most of those ideas you mentioned are either in the game in some way, are too complicated, or are just not needed.

Understood. Just putting ideas out there. I couldn't see which idea was already in the game that you mentioned. And yes i am basically rewriting everything in the game with these mechanics if they are put into use. But please pick if any which idea you liked the most or which part of the idea you liked. The idea was okay but you want to find some other way to implement it into the game, that sort of stuff. I kinda keep updating.